The silence of Archive Zone 7 was not peaceful. It was the kind of silence that knew things — heavy, breathing, alive.
Rows of ruined shelves stood like gravestones in a broken temple. Torn books scattered the floor. The air smelled like ash and old blood. And in the middle of it all, with dust clinging to his sleeves, stood a boy who should've never been there.
Rael Veyar.
Seventeen. Quiet. Almost invisible. Official title: "Junior Cataloguer." Unofficially? He was a ghost in human form — a boy with eyes that remembered everything… and lips that spoke almost nothing.
He wasn't meant to be in the deeper layers of the archive. That zone had been locked down for weeks — since the last Echo Realm appeared overhead. But something had drawn him here. Something older than logic.
A hum. A whisper. A pulse.
Rael knelt beside a broken display case, fingers brushing away layers of dust. Beneath it lay a fragment — small, violet, shaped like a splintered crystal. But it didn't reflect light. It seemed to absorb it.
He reached for it. And the world changed. The instant his fingers touched the surface, a voice sliced through his mind like a blade through paper.
"You are not the first."
Rael gasped. His body convulsed as memories that weren't his began flooding in — screams in languages long dead, burning cities, winged shadows blotting out suns, a silver sword buried in a god's throat.
His knees hit the floor. The fragment pulsed again. "You are not ready."
"But you will be."
Blood trickled from Rael's nose. His vision blurred. He should've let go.
He should've run.
But his hands wouldn't move.His mind — too curious.His soul — already chosen.
And somewhere in the darkness of his breaking consciousness...a blade whispered his name. "Rael Veyar. Remember me."
Darkness wasn't empty. It had weight.
Rael floated in a space that wasn't a space. There were no walls, no sky, no ground — just shifting colors of memory. Murky violet and deep crimson bled into one another like forgotten ink in water. He could hear whispers. He could feel cold. He could see thoughts. "Am I dead?"
No answer came. Only a slow pulse — like a heartbeat made of thunder and glass. Then the world around him twisted. Fractured. And from the void stepped a figure wrapped in silence.
The Last Godkiller. Seven feet tall. Wrapped in what looked like a cloak made from the broken feathers of angels. A blade hung at his side — massive, jagged, ancient. Its edge shimmered like starlight swallowed by shadow. His face was a blur. No eyes. No mouth. Just a void where identity should have been.
"So... they finally found another one."
The voice didn't come from the figure's mouth — it came from inside Rael's own head. "Wh-What is this?" Rael's voice trembled, the first time he'd spoken aloud in days. "Where am I?"
"Inside the memory of a world that was erased."
The Godkiller stepped forward, his movements echoing across nothing. "You touched my fragment. That means you carry what remains of me. My thoughts. My sins." "I didn't choose to," Rael whispered.
"But I did."
A pause.
"And now you must decide — will you use my power? Or will it consume you like it did me?"
Rael's chest burned. He looked down — glyphs were glowing beneath his skin, pulsing like breathing scars. "What… happens if I say no?"
The Godkiller tilted his head. "Then you forget. Everything."
The nothingness shook. Suddenly — screams. A thousand lives unraveling in reverse. Cities dying backwards. Lovers un-kissing. Heroes fading mid-swing. It was like watching history unravel thread by thread. Rael dropped to his knees. His hands trembled. "Make it stop." "Then take it."
The blade floated toward him. "Take the curse. Take the war. Take the memory."
Rael stared at it — trembling, terrified… and curious. "What was your name?" he asked. The Godkiller's voice cracked for the first time.
"I forgot."
Rael reached out. And the sword sank into his chest like light melting into flesh. Pain. Fire. Silence. He screamed — but no one heard. And just before the memory collapsed… A voice — not the Godkiller's — whispered: "Wake up, Rael. The real nightmare is starting."
Rael's eyes snapped open.
The world around him swam in flickers — like his vision was glitching between two realities. For a moment, he saw the archive floor. Broken shelves. Blood. Fire..But in the blink of a breath, it became something else — black stone walls, alien writing crawling across the ceiling, and a sword… embedded in his chest. He gasped and sat up, nearly choking on air. Dust exploded off the floor as his hands shot forward to catch himself. His fingers… were burning. Not with fire — but with something deeper.
A memory that wasn't his. His skin was glowing. Thin glyphs — curved, angular, almost poetic — pulsed beneath his flesh in soft silver light. They moved slowly, like veins learning how to breathe again. He clutched his head as pain stabbed behind his eyes. Images flashed: A boy walking alone through a desert of bones. A god falling from the sky, laughing as it burned.
A blade slicing a memory clean in half. A name carved in nothing: "Eidra-Khul. The Devourer of Realms." Rael screamed and it echoed off the cold, ruined archive walls. Then silence again. Heavy, trembling silence.
He opened his eyes. They weren't silver anymore — they were storm-grey. Still… wrong. Still changed. What… happened to me?
He remembered touching the fragment.
He remembered the Godkiller. He remembered the pain. But he also remembered something impossible:
A language he'd never studied. A battle he'd never fought. A death he hadn't died.
Rael tried to stand. His legs almost gave out. But when his hand touched the nearest wall… a ripple of energy flowed through it. A small symbol — circular, ancient — lit up on the stone. Then faded. Rael stared. "I know this glyph," he whispered.
He didn't know how he knew it. But he did. Something inside him had changed. Not just power. Not just knowledge. Memory. Rael Veyar — junior cataloguer, invisible orphan — had become something else. A hunter of memories.
Outside, the sky cracked. Far above the archive dome, a new Echo Realm opened — wide, spinning, and bleeding golden mist. Somewhere in the city, sirens began to wail.